Experimental study of the optimal acceleration mode of the tower crane slewing mechanism

Tower cranes play a crucial role in construction. They are designed for material handling, and to ensure maximum efficiency, it is essential to minimize load oscillations during transitional movement phases (acceleration or braking). The purpose of this study is to verify theoretical calculations by analyzing experimental results regarding the optimal acceleration control of the slewing mechanism of a laboratory tower crane setup. The study involved calculating the duration of individual acceleration stages of the boom system under varying parameters—load mass, boom outreach, and flexible suspension length, which were the independent research factors. A total of 12 experiments were conducted. The experiments were performed using a laboratory tower crane setup equipped with instruments to measure changes in load pendulum oscillations and boom slewing. The dataset obtained from the experiments was analyzed based on numerical deviations between theoretical and experimental data (quantitative analysis) and graphical dependencies (qualitative analysis). The results confirm that the experimental studies validate the hypothesis regarding the practical feasibility of implementing optimal acceleration control of the crane boom slewing mechanism.